Thursday, May 28, 2015

First after-blast footage of Martin Richard discovered?

This picture is a still from the Daniel Robert video, taken at 0:25. For the fraction of a second, the head of some person with short, dark hair, apparently a young boy, gets visible in the background right of the policeman. Despite the blurriness it is recognizable that his face is not blood-stained, and he doesn't seem to scream. He might be without consciousness. He sits on the sidewalk directly at the corner of the Forum's little fence in front of the main entrance.

He is not Aaron Hern who was treated at another place, between the tree and the road sign. He is also not David Yepez for the same reasons. He is not Leo Woolfenden who looks different and was not at the crime scene when the photo was taken. From his look, it might be Martin Richard. Is it Martin Richard?

Between 0:07 and 0:27 the video camera doesn't change position and direction. During this time, the back of a woman with long smooth dark hair, a black jacket and blue jeans is seen cowering in front of the boy and almost always covering him - with the exception of the said half-second. Sometimes she turns right and her profile gets visible. This snapshot at 0:15 shows her head in the yellow circle.

The white dot on top of her hair is a reflection from the sunglasses she wears over her head, that's why I'll call her the sunglasses woman from now on. She appears on numerous other photos too, if only with her back mostly. This newly published photo (Bill Hoenk) is the only one that shows her from the front:

She cowers on the sidewalk on the right side of the photo. Her sunglasses are distinctly identifiable. She seems to spread a towel over the lower body of someone. This must be the boy from the above still. And indeed, his body size indicates that he's not an adult. Is this couple Denise and Martin Richard?

It is tempting to assume that the woman is Denise Richard - there is a certain resemblance, the hair is similar, she cares for a boy, and she wears her sunglasses over the head just like Denise Richard in the first published photo of the Richard family:

However, the sunglasses woman is definitely not Denise Richard who wore no sunglasses on Marathon day, but a striking brown cap. Here's an exhibit from the trial:

Opposed to that, our woman wears sunglasses, but no brown cap. Moreover, Denise Richard was heavily injured in her right eye by shrapnel, loosing the sight there. The face of the sunglasses woman is without any blood stain, and there is not the slightest hint in her demeanor that she's injured or hurt, neither in the face nor elsewhere. She is in a condition to care for others instead of looking like someone who is to be cared for.

If the sunglasses woman is not Denise Richard, what does that say for the identity of the boy? The still from the Daniel Robert video is, as mentioned, the first picture of someone who might be Martin Richard, thus breaking the eerie lack of footage: he and Lingzi Lu are the most prominent victims of the second bomb blast, but at the same time they are the only victims who are not depicted on any post-blast video or photo footage. This might have changed with the release of the new Bill Hoenk photos.

Be it Martin Richard or not, one thing is for sure: this boy was not at this place when the bomb exploded. He must have been moved there from somewhere else. Post-blast footage shows that another person was sitting at the fence at first - presumably Danling Zhou - and afterwards the spot is empty for a while. Then the sunglasses woman and her protégé occupy it for several minutes, at least since 2:40 minutes after the blast. On this photo from the sidewalk in front of Starbucks Coffee (Dana Rouleau), taken maybe 6 or 7 minutes after the blast, she is still at the same place - her face is visible:

If the boy is Martin Richard, the question arises why the sunglasses woman is with him the whole time and not his mother, as it always has been reported. If he's not Martin Richard, who is it?